Think of them as junior parents, Best says.

Question: Why are teachers so influential?

Charles Best: Well, I hope that during the five years, when I was a social studies teachers up in the Bronx that I was at least a little bit impactful on my students, and I think with me and my students it helped that I was pretty close to them in age, and I think it helped that I was just really excited to be teaching them and I think I hopefully infected some of them with my enthusiasm for the subject matter I was teaching and, you know, when I look back there were some really tough kids, a couple whom would write me birthday cards on my birthday, and do things that where really sweet which they probably never would have admitted to amongst their classmates, but I did get to experience that bond between teacher and students for five years and I think it was really what prompted me to start DonorsChoose.org, but in terms what it is about teachers is that has so many people citing them as their role models... I don’t know, I guess it’s just that they are like a junior of parent, always the one that the teachers who you really like.

Recorded on: 1/29/08